passed the suppressed telegram across to
Blount. "Here it is; you can do the waste-basket act yourself. I
couldn't let you commit _hara-kiri_ without at least trying to get the
cutting tool out of your hands. What is the other thing you've got on
your mind this early in the morning? It must be a nightmare of some
sort, by the look in your eyes."

"It may figure as a nightmare to you, Dick, before we're through with
it. I'll make it short. You know what I have been doing--what I supposed
I was hired to do--assuring everybody right and left that we were going
into this campaign with clean hands?"

"I know," admitted the traffic manager, developing a sudden interest in
the figures of the rug at his feet.

"I have been doing this in a business way at my office up-town, in
season and out of season, and night before last, at Ophir, I did it
publicly. As the campaign progresses, I shall doubtless put myself on
record many times to the same effect."

"Good man!" applauded Gantry, striving to drag the talk down to some
less portentous altitude. "I'm sure we need all the whitewashing anybody
can give us."

"That is just the point I have come to make," Blount went on gravely.
"It mustn't be merely a coat of whitewash, Dick; it has got to be the
real thing, this time. I began by firing the 'little brothers,' as you
called them, but I sha'n't stop at that; I mean to go higher up if I am
compelled to. I am here this morning to ask you to give me your word as
a gentleman and my friend that you will not, directly or indirectly, do
or cause to be done anything that will make me stand forth as a
self-convicted liar before the people of this State. I want you to
promise me that you will cut out all the deals, all the briberies, all
the bargainings, all the--"

"Oh, say; see here!" protested the man under fire; "you've got the wrong
pig by the ear, Evan. I'm not the Transcontinental Railway Company!"

"I know you are not. But, to a greater degree than any other official in
the local management, you have Mr. McVickar's confidence. If you don't
feel competent to handle the thing on your own responsibility, of course
it's your privilege to pass it up to those who have the authority. In
that case, I wish to make one point clear: you're the man I'm going to
hold up to the rack. I can't afford to spread myself over the entire
management, and I don't mean to try. I'm going to look to you, Dick, for
the backing of the clean sheet, and I wa